Almighty Tools For Almighty Programmers

Who This Book Is For

If you’re a Lisp-curious veteran programming looking for the perfect book for getting started with Common Lisp and Emacs, you need to read this book.

If you’ve tried to learn Common Lisp in the past, but couldn’t overcome the Emacs-wall, this book will pull you up and over that wall.

If you seek to learn the tools that will take you to another celestial plane of existence and software engineering ecstasy, first *settle down you insane person* (but I like that enthusiasm), and then begin reading Almighty Lisp: Lisp & Emacs Essentials IMMEDIATELY.

Learn The Language & The Editor

Learning Common Lisp is easy, but it’s complicated by the fact that Emacs is the defacto standard editor for it. Other editors support Common Lisp, but none of them have the rich set of features that you find in Emacs--either for text editing or for Common Lisp development.

Other books on Common Lisp teach the language, but they don’t teach the editor for the language. Finally, with Almighty Lisp: Lisp & Emacs Essentials, you can learn the language and the editor with the same book, drastically speeding up your proficiency with both. You’ll be barfing and slurping while you C-c C-c macros in no time.

What You'll Learn

In Almighty Lisp: Lisp & Emacs Essentials, the Common Lisp content covers:

• The Fundamentals (symbols, functions, control flow, etc.)
• List processing
• Functional Programming features
• The most powerful Object-Oriented Programming language features in any language.
• Macros
• Errors & Conditions
• Creating Executables & Deploying
• ... and more.

There are several small projects included that you can follow along with to practice editing with Emacs and become familiar with the essential features included with Common Lisp. I’ll also introduce you to the ecosystem teach you proper Common Lisp style.

The Emacs content covers:

• Downloading & Installing Doom Emacs
• Basic Survival Emacs Without Keybindings
• Text Editing
• Buffer Navigation & Management
• Window Navigation & Management
• Advanced Features Including Project-Level Search & Replace
• Using the Sly Common Lisp IDE
• Common Lisp Structured Editing
• ... and more.

You won’t need to learn all of Emacs’ features immediately. In fact, you will begin by using Emacs’ GUI menus for basic operations before advancing to using keybindings and using more advanced features.

The Almighty Philosophy

Common Lisp is a language optimized for ultimate adaptability. It’s a generalist’s secret weapon; a programming language that isn’t a master at anything, but is quite capable at doing everything.

With the rise of LLMs and a rapidly changing software industry, it’s easy to feel anxious about your own future as a software developer.

But you don’t need to worry. You need to adapt. Common Lisp is an almighty programming language that enables and even summons its users to become almighty. The macros are waiting. The REPL is loaded. The buffers and windows are at your command.

Be not defeated by the rapidly shifting winds of code and craft. Embrace the piercing light of destiny, beaming from the flaming horizon over an effervescent ocean of functions, classes, and parentheses. Become Almighty.